Is CTE More Than Another Fad?

From The Hill:

“Over the past couple years, career and technical education (CTE) has garnered a lot of attention. Politico reported last year that 49 states and Washington DC enacted 241 CTE-related laws, executive actions, and budget provisions in 2017. A 2018 AEI study found that CTE was the only education issue supported by a majority of gubernatorial candidates. Meanwhile, a 2018 analysis revealed that the number of high school students concentrating in career education rose 22 percent, to 3.6 million, during the past decade.

All this raises a big question, given education’s long experience with fads and shifting sentiment: Is the boom in career and technical education one more fad, or does it reflect something more substantial? That answer matters for how much attention this push deserves from educators, parents, and policymakers.

In a new American Enterprise Institute research paper we take a stab at answering this question, by examing the mainstream U.S. media attention devoted to career and technical education over the past two decades — and comparing that to the patterns of attention devoted to other popular 21^st-century education reforms.  What did we find?”

To read more, click here.